Defense – Obstacles Part III: Placement And Man-Improved Obstacles

In the last entry we covered what natural obstacles were and why they work. In this entry we’re going to begin to address man-improved obstacles and their placement. Remember a man-improved obstacle is one that implies a natural obstacle has been improved or an obstacle created through human effort. In military doctrine these are normally referred to manmade however I want to draw a distinction between man-improved and manmade (an obstacle human placed that consumes resources like wire, posts, etc.). Normally man-improved obstacles take less effort than manmade ones and what I refer to as man-improved obstacles normally don’t require significant external resources.

During this entry I’ll be using the phrase “cut a/the trail” This implies actually severing a trail and not creating one like we would normally use the term. Why would you cut a trail? If you have multiple routes in your AO or on your land you may want to eliminate some of them to vehicle traffic (remember a guy on foot is going to be damn hard to stop) which could decrease the numbers of avenues of approach the threat could take while mounted (in a vehicle). And with cutting a trail the old adage applies – “Any obstacle that’s going to make it hard for the threat to get in is going to make it hard for you to get out“. Use these examples only by weighing that along with all of the pros and cons that putting them in brings.

One of the basic tenants of obstacles I presented in the introduction was the fact that it’s much easier to halt or delay a vehicle than a person on foot with an obstacle. We’re going to focus on delaying vehicles in this entry because it’s a given that a determined threat on foot is going to find a way in. So for our purposes we’ll look at trails on flat land, uphill/downhill, and side slopes. IMHO these types of vehicular obstacles are best placed a good distance away from your homestead. Why? It they do stop a vehicle completely and the threat dismounts to continue on it’s going to cost him time and energy humping it. Once he gets to your homestead he still has to assault. And in the middle of summer with a 100 degrees outside he’s probably going to already be beat. Since we’re looking at vehicles let’s take another look at the performance stats I presented in the natural vehicle entry.

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